Re:Nuclear Power Is the Answer to Global and Environmental E...
by blibble on Friday April 21, 2023 @04:38PM
(#35659750)
those articles are pretty anti-scientific (especially the second one)
1.5 million litres of radioactive water (triated water) sounds scary, but they don't report the concentration, so it's meaningless
if it was 1.5 billion litres with the same radiological content it would be less dangerous
a load of coal ash getting into a river is likely worse radiologically and chemically than some triated water escaping
https://www.ap.org/press-releases/2012/part-ii-ap-impact-tri...
45 out of 65 sites had significant tritium leaks, some were migrating off site, some were starting to contaminate public drinking water.
The nuclear industry is so loosely regulated that a half million gallon leak of radioactive water recently apparently didn't require them to notify anyone https://apnews.com/article/xcel-energy-nuclear-leak-tritium-...
Also: "it's better than coal!"...no kidding. It's not better than wind and solar. Not in terms of price, time to install, time for carbon payback, waste issues, or safety.
That's why grid operators are shutting down both coal and nuclear in the US, and replacing it with solar and wind (the US has in recent years installed 6x more renewables-based capacity than nuclear capacity that has been shut down)